Leaders and militants of Mezam IA are waiting patiently and confidently for the Constitutional Council to declare the winner of the October 7 Presidential poll.
3258 voted in the five polling centres out of the over 11 000 registered voters. A record turnout in the North West Region, where thousands could not vote. The security scare pushed many out of the regions before elections and forced many to stay behind closed doors on the polling date. In Bemenda I, the sub division is relatively calm since the Anglophone crisis escalated into an armed conflict two years ago. Here, there are no incidents of kidnappings, arson and the phenomenon of ghost town as in some parts of the region. This state of affairs accounts for the number that voted in this area.
The sub division which extends from Up Station (the administrative centre hosting regional offices) to the interior of Bamendankwe village is calm thanks to the vigilance and dedication of the elite. Taniform Peter Ngwa, the Section President of Mezam IA , also a respected elite among the youth and other strata in his community, in unison with other elite, dissuaded young people from joining the ranks of armed separatists. Last vacation, he organized and sponsored the third edition of the Peace and Unity Crusade (PUC) in the sub division. Through games, road maintenance and career orientation, the community was busy and had no time give in to the manipulation on social media from the Diaspora. Scholarships awarded to best pupils, students, teachers and schools encouraged the community to value education and prefer schools to violence. Also, the reconciliation between the elite during this PUC left no cracks for nihilists passing for elite abroad to penetrate.
The council area is the lone led-CPDM municipality in Bamenda since 2013; a historic takeover from the opposition hegemony since the return to multiparty politics in the 90s. Although, the subdivision was calm, the parties of the other 8 aspirants ignored the area and never campaigned. It is a serene CPDM family that is waiting for the results. “We carried out the door-to-door and mouth-to-ear campaigns diligently. We reached out to all our militants in the section. After such meticulous work, we expected the crowd that came and voted. We are confident as we wait for the results,” the President of the Council Campaign Commission for Bamenda I, also section president, said in full trust.